Celestial Hymn 53 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn

Chapter 53

-VB-

Alan Marris

My eyes opened slowly and found myself staring up at a familiar ceiling, that of my Red Keep bedroom. I got up as I normally would, washed my face, hands, neck, and arms, and then dressed myself.

“OH MY GODS!”

I jolted and whirled around, quickly suppressing my innate fight-or-flight instinct to lash out, and looked at the screamer with wide eyes.

It was one of the Red Keep maids that served me.

“Wha-?”

“You’re awake, milord!”

“I am…” I replied with a slow nod of my head. “Please don’t scream like that again.”

She realized what she did, going from normal to pale and then pale to flushing. She bowed profusely before slinking away, telling me through mumbles that she would be letting the keep know that I was awake.

Less than five minutes later, I was in my office and ready to get back to work when the doors to my office, which I closed on my way in after greeting the guards outside, slammed open, and I found myself looking up at Myrcella and Tommen.

Myrcella looked upset and Tommen looked like he’d spent however long I had been out for consoling his sister and thus upset with me.

I froze in place when the two kids ran straight into me. Well, teenagers, but still kids in my eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said with a sigh. “I didn’t expect to pass out like that.”

Because that was obviously what happened. Why did I pass out like that when I’ve done more with less? It was something I needed to investigate if I wanted to keep using the World Item.

“Do you know what happened?” I asked them as I sat back down on my bed with the two kids.

---

Stannis stared with wide eyes as the Mage Lord collapsed abruptly.

Suddenly, he and the other Lord Paramounts found themselves stuck between three forces. The first was that of the Mage Lord himself. His sudden collapse among them just after he took care of the enemies outside would take but a few wrong thoughts and wrongs to see them turn violent. Two, the garrison of King’s Landing had been slowly replaced with Baratheon loyalists and Mage Lord loyalists - or at the very least, those neutral to the conflict at hand. They would be very upset if something happened to him. Three, their own people, numbering the least, might take this to mean that they broke the Guest Rights.

He looked up and saw the Lannister and Stark lords come to similar conclusions.

But before someone could say anything, there was a sudden burst of movement, and one of the acolytes of the Mage Lord was kneeling by his lord’s side. His hand gently pressed against the lord’s neck and another on his head.

“Mana depletion!” the acolyte shouted, and half a dozen more acolytes rushed up the stairs of the battlement. They quickly hauled their lord up and rushed out as quickly as they had appeared. The first acolyte turned to them. He was a middle aged man with more wrinkles than even Tywin. “Apologies, milords. We did not expect our lord to collapse like this. Please excuse us.”

And then he was off.

Stannis, Robb, and Tywin stared after the eccentric bunch of magicians.

“At least they are competent in serving their lord,” Tywin grunted after a moment.

Stannis glanced at the Lannister patriarch. As far as he was concerned, that was a high praise coming from Tywin “All of you are imbeciles” Lannister.

---

“So my acolytes helped,” I hummed.

I never thought that they would come to be this useful. They helped me not just with my ship but also at my most vulnerable.

… Perhaps the idea of abandoning them might have been shortsighted of me. Had I been that cold?

But then I remembered what my own people did to me, of the septon that tried to beat me down, and the people that went along with a single man’s ambition.

I hummed. Trust but verify. My acolytes proved to be more trustworthy than the smallfolk and the Faith of the Seven. Perhaps I’ll offer some of them chance to become something bigger. Perhaps even a successor to the Cabal?

Something to think very hard about.

For now, I needed to reassure the Baratheon siblings, and then reassure the Lord Paramounts. This entire Great Council would be unlikely to continue on the path I want if I, the major support behind this, suddenly showed a weakness that they did not expect.

Ginnungagap. That World Item caused this. I needed to know why it put me out like that.

I paused as the Celestial Forge opened another connection, and briefly froze as I waited to see what would be dropped on my lap this time.

… Snappy and snazzy official uniform designing and making skill for whatever organization I am part of.

Okay.

Um, kind of weird, especially when I can hear the word Reich screaming in my head when I got it, but it was one I’ll roll with.

Hey, didn’t this mean that I could also make my acolyte look badass?

… This felt kind of like the perfect way to show my appreciation for them. Everyone liked looking good.

-VB-

Robb Stark

“You look fine for a man that just collapsed,” Robb noted after he exchanged the initial greetings just outside the Small Council office.

“Mana exhaustion, as a condition, is a little different from physical exhaustion,” I replied with a smile. “Recovery depends on the fortitude and flexibility of the mind and soul, and as soon as you have a small reservoir recovered, you are good to walk around again, though I would not practice intensive magic right now.”

“Like the Crushing?” Robb asked as the Mage Lord walked around to sit in one of the chairs for the first meeting of the participating Lord Paramounts. Soon, Tywin joined them, followed by Stannis.

“‘Crushing’?” Lord Marris asked casually.

“That is what the smallfolk and lords are calling it,” he replied. “Because there are now remains of thousands of crushed ironborn littering the coast like trash and shit covers this city’s streets.”

“Hmm. A fitting name, I guess.”

Stannis cleared his throat. “So what exactly are we here to discuss? The succession?”

“What else?” the Mage Lord asked.

“And you can with a body that weak?” Tywin asked, sneering slightly. “You should be in bed, not the Small Council chamber.”

“I’ve already fully recovered,” Lord Marris waved off the … was that concern from the Lannister Lord? “Besides, I used that World Item for the first time. Turns out, it’s not compatible with me. What we saw was it wasting nearly two-thirds of the power I gave it.”

Robb had to stop and let those words run through his head at least a few more times.

“I don’t understand,” Stannis spoke up.

‘Thank you,’ Robb thought in his head.

Lord Marris paused before he seemed to realize that none of them were magicians except him. “Right, so. Magic has compatibility. Like if you and your wives are compatible but magic has many different forms. You might be good at shadowbinding. You might be good at elementalism. You might be horrible at everything but flying. It goes on and on and on like that. The World Item, Ginnungagap, was essentially incompatible with me because I lack compatibility with Divinity and that World Item is of Divine nature.”

Oh.

This was quickly going into a territory Robb felt uncomfortable with.

Stannis grunted. “We’re not here to talk about magic.”

And so they began to talk about the state of the kingdom, the succession, and the outcomes they wanted.